Sale of Goods Act 1893

The Sale of Goods Act 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. 71) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland to regulate contracts in which goods are sold and bought and to define the rights and duties of the parties (where not expressly defined in the agreement), while specifically preserving the relevance of ordinary contractual principles. The Act was repealed in the United Kingdom in 1980 and 1982 but remains in force in Ireland, having been carried over into Irish law following independence.

Background
The Act was drafted by Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, who later drafted the Marine Insurance Act 1906. As noted by Lord Denning MR in The Mihalis Angelos [1971] 1 QB 164 he adopted a division between conditions and warranties in terms of contracts, propounded by Sir Frederick Pollock in his book Formation of Contracts. This was followed by Fletcher Moulton LJ in a celebrated dissent in Wallis, Son & Wells v Pratt & Haynes [1910] 2 KB 1003, 1012 and adopted by the House of Lords in [1911] AC 394.

The Sale of Goods Act 1893 is considered to be classic example of a codifying statute; that is, it draws on established judge-made common law principles and converts them into a more accessible statutory form. The Act's successor in the United Kingdom, the Sale of Goods Act 1979, shares the same structure, phraseology and numbering as the 1893 Act.

Repeal
In the United Kingdom, the whole Act, except for section 26, was repealed on 1 January 1980 subject to a number of savings, and section 26 was repealed on 1 January 1982.

In Ireland, the Act remains in operation, although it has been amended on a number of occasions.